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Cloverfield (film)/Cloverfield Monster
The monster is the main antagonist of the film Cloverfield. The monster rampages throughout Manhattan, destroying the city in its path. This destruction causes the United States government to sacrifice New York City in an attempt to kill the monster with heavy ordnance in the Hammerdown protocol. Before that, the monster killed Jason Hawkins by crushing him with its tail on the Brooklyn Bridge, its parasites bite Marlena, causing her to explode from her chest cavity, and it bites Hud in mere minutes before the Hammerdown protocol. The whisper after the credits states that the monster is still alive; however, JJ Abrams contradicts this by saying military bombing kills the creature, so therefore the monster's fate is unknown. The monster's origins were supposedly to have been revealed in Cloverfield/Kishin, but this is not widely considered as canon. The monster came from the Atlantic ocean, where it was awakened by Tagruato submarines sent down from Chuai station to investigate. The monster is never truly named in the film, but the nickname "Clover" is generally accepted by fans. In the Blu-Ray release of the film, the notations state that the United States Department of Defense has code-named it "LSA," which stands for "Large Scale Aggressor." Other names were given by the fan community. Appearance The monster is a 350 foot high quadruped with long tri-fork finned tail. The uppermost double-jointed limb pair is longer than the other two, ending in a multi-fingered hand which can bend backward so that the creature can walk on its fingers. The double-jointed, squat legs are powerful enough to support the creature’s mass, and yet still allow it to move relatively quickly for an organism of its size. Each of its feet is 30-40 feet in length, roughly the size of a city transit bus. The creature is covered in gray skin that exhibits a white pallor, possibly due to an inexistence of light on the ocean floor. The skin is also host to thousands of dog-sized parasitic creatures. Tucked between the monster's legs are two "external esophogi". The esophogi are used to eat creatures much smaller than itself (humans and any other large animals). In the Cloverfield/Kishin manga, the monster's external esophogi are shown using long, thin tubes to wrap around the victims and bring them in, though how much the manga can be trusted on these matters is unclear. The esophogi were first clearly seen when Hud looks up at the monster before it bites him. Fans originally misinterpreted the tubes to be limbs before their true . The esophogi end in teeth-like projections. It devoured several dozen Central Park carriage horses with these, as well as (most likely) the people that Marlena mentioned the monster was eating when it moved down Broadway. Its head has sharp, bony features and two eyes with pupils large enough to almost obscure their requisite sclera from view. It's face resembles that of a piranha or an anglerfish. There are a set of membranous sacks on either side of the head behind the eyes, which inflate and receed back into the head, revealed in an interview to be "ear membranes," much like those of a frog. Soem fans have speculated that they are filled with some type of fluid to help it adjust to the different pressures it encounters on land. The creature has a high resistance to projectile weaponry, due to the immensely high resistance deep-sea creatures have shown against heat and pressure due to their environmental conditions. Shells from M-1 tanks, AT-4 rockets, 80 Mk 82 bombs and other high powered ordnance failed to do anything other than aggravate the creature. According to film producer J.J. Abrams, the creature is “...a baby. He’s brand-new. He’s confused, disoriented and irritable. And he’s been down there in the water for thousands and thousands of years.” Measurements These are all estimations by the US Department of Defense. * Height (quadruped pose) - 240-300 feet (73.2-91.4 metres). * Height (standing upright) - 350 feet. * Length (head to tail) - 1200 feet (365.8 metres). * Weight - 5806.04 metric tons. * Width (assuming arms are outstretched) - 740 feet (225.6 metres). * Height of head - 45 feet (13.7 metres). * Depth of head - 50 feet (15.2 metres). * Width of mouth - 15 feet (4.6 metres). * Height of mouth - 35 feet (10.7 metres). * Length of longest tooth - 5 feet (1.5 metres). * Length of foot - 35-40 feet (10.7-12.2 metres). Name The monster has not been given an official name, however the fan community refer to it by a number of different names: * Cloverfield * Clover (variations: Clovey, Clovy, Clovie) * LSA ("Large Scale Aggressor," originating from the film's Blu-Ray notations) * Slusho (after the fictional Japanese drink used to promote the film as part of the Viral Marketing.) * "A Terrible Thing" (after Hud's description) (variations: ATT, Terry) * "Big Barney" * "Mister Grumpy Pants" (variations: Mister Grumpypants, Mr. Grumpy Pants, Mr. Grumpypants, MGP) Diet The Monster's diet covers a large array of foods. The first hint at the monster's diet was when a photo of whales the monster had partially consumed appeared on 1-18-08.com. In Cloverfield, Marlena says she saw it "eating people". The exterior esophogi are the right size to consume humans, amongst other things. Other amateur video footage of the Cloverfield event reveal that the monster was also seen eating multiple horses at the same time with these tubes. Parasites The Monster was also covered in more than 200,000 parasites that are about the same weight and height as a dog. They have 10 legs, consisting of six spider-like, double jointed legs and 4 "attack arms" on the top and back of its body. They have very large jaws, pale grayish skin, and many black eyes. The Department of Defense called the parasites "HSP", for "Human Scale Parasite". The Department noticed how the parasites attack with pack coordination, and prefer enclosed spaces for trapping and surprising prey. They can also detect prey from afar, by an unknown method. The Monster is seen scratching off the parasites on a building in lower Manhattan. Marlena Diamond is killed by a parasite's bite in the film. The bite in the subway, owing to some sort of venom or hazardous substance in the Parasites' saliva, causes Marlena to bleed from the eyes and cough up blood from the mouth; shortly after, her abdominal area violently explodes. The Blu-Ray notations state that the water that the group uses to clean the bite wounds somehow accelerated its effects. Several minutes before Marlena explodes, a dead soldier is wheeled in front of the group by a pair of medics, his chest having a large, gaping hole, while the medical officers say "Another bite," foreshadowing Marlena's fate. History The monster's origins are only revealed in the film's viral marketing campaign (due to the fact that Abrams wanted the movie to be realistic; if a monster did attack, we would have no idea where it came from unless we witnessed it ourselves), leaving some who have seen the film but haven't researched the viral confused about where it really came from. Many people speculate that it is of extraterrestrial descent, based on a moment in the last shot of the film where a far-away object is seen falling from the sky into the ocean, but this has been denied by J.J. Abrams; the object in question is actually Tagruato's ChimpanzIII satellite. The monster is a deep-sea creature with an unknown evolutionary history (though it likely has some distant relation to early amphibians). The species apparently has a very long life-span, because the creature is still an infant by the time of the film even though it has been alive for thousands of years. It grew to its massive size through a combination of the natural large size one would expect from a creature living that far under the ocean and consuming large amounts of Seabed's Nectar, a natural steroid-like substance which is very addictive and causes increased cell division and growth, and is used by Tagruato's subsidiary company, Slusho!, for use as their secret ingredient in their frozen drink of the same name. At some point afterwards, the monster went into a long, deep sleep. The monster was first discovered by Tagruato marine biologist Kazui Ichigawa; Tagruato later stole his laptop and files and killed him and his family while they were on vacation in Daisetsu-San National Park, covering the assassination up as the result of a gas explosion in their trailer. Later, they used this information to locate the monster and build the Chuai station on top of it, claiming (falsely) that they were drilling for oil there. Shortly before the rig was supposed to open, Tagruato sent several submarines from the station down six miles to the ocean floor to study the monster. This action disturbed the creature from its slumber, and in a fit of rage and fear it destroyed the station, then made a beeline towards Manhattan (in the film, it is shown that the monster destroys a Tagruato oil tanker; some fans have speculated that the tanker contained Seabed's Nectar and that the monster arrived in Manhattan by following it). The creature, upon arriving in New York City, tries to eat the Statue of Liberty's head, then throws it into the city when it realizes the head isn't edible. Though initially confused and curious about the city and its people, the military's subsequent attacks on it frighten and later enrage the monster. For approximately siz hours, it rampages throughout the city, destroying landmarks and battling the military. After many military attempts at bombing the monster and creating much devastation in Manhattan, culminating with the use of several MOABs as per the Hammerdown protocol, the creature's fate is still yet to be revealed. Many argue that an audio clip at the end of the credits in the film said the words "Help us," but it is in fact "It's still alive," only backwards. This suggests that after Operation HAMMER-DOWN, the monster has survived. However, a recent interview from Rolling Stone magazine with J.J. Abrams tells us that the bombs eventually killed the monster. It has been speculated that Abrams was joking or being sarcastic due to the fact that the interviewer incorrectly stated in the question that the picture of the dead whales on 1-18-08.com was actually the monster (some point out that the article contains an illustration of him dressed as a clown) or is lying, as he has been known to do about his TV show Lost, in order to throw off fans. External Links *Cloverfield Military Commentary *Tagruato Interview: Cloverfield Lead Creature Designer Neville Page *Cloverfield Blu-Ray Special Investigation Mode Fan Video 1 *Cloverfield Blu-Ray Special Investigation Mode Fan Video 2 Category:Characters